Welcoming Week, a series of community-building events that promote inclusivity and belonging, as well as progress within the Gunnison Valley, is returning for the second year in September.
“This week, and our efforts are really trying to bring in that sense that everyone here belongs, no matter where you come from, your socio economic background, ethnicity, or how you identify as a person,” said Ricardo Esqueda, an outreach liaison for the City of Gunnison who helped put the event together.
In 2022, Welcoming America, a national nonprofit that is leading a movement to create more inclusive communities across the United States, selected Gunnison to participate in its Rural Welcoming Initiative. With direction from Welcoming America, the city launched its first-ever “Welcoming Week” that fall — created to highlight programs and organizations that have already begun to implement equitable services and influence others to make changes.
Welcoming Week will return with even more in-person celebrations from Sept. 8 to 16. Local leaders from the city county, the Hispanic Affairs Project, Inmigrantes Unidos and the Community Foundation of the Gunnison Valley formed a team to craft a full list of events for the week.
The group, which just referred to itself as a “site team” in 2022, returned this year with a new name, the Gunnison Cultural Connection. But Esqueda said it still has a similar mission: “To build bridges to create a sense of belonging for everyone in our community.”
“We thought it really captured what it was we were trying to do,” said County Commissioner Liz Smith. “We're trying to honor the work that lots of organizations have been doing for decades in the valley, and consolidate some of that energy and push it forward into new and exciting directions.”
Each day of the event has its own theme to encompass the different sectors needed to make a community welcoming including civic engagement, economic development, education and equitable access. Welcoming Week kicks off on Friday, Sept. 8 at Western Colorado University with a free evening screening of “From Here,” a documentary about the immigrant story. Esqueda said he hopes it launches discussion about the lived experiences of Gunnison’s immigrant community and will be followed by a panel.
Over the course of the week, residents will have an opportunity to register to vote with the League of Women Voters, learn about the upcoming election and meet their local law enforcement officers and firefighters. Welcoming Week also creates an opportunity for community organizations to show the progress made over the past year to expand services for the valley’s Spanish-speaking community members. For example, there are plans to highlight Gunnison’s first-ever Business Idea Lab for Hispanic entrepreneurs and the Resiliency Project’s growing microgrant program.
Welcoming Week will be filled with celebrations, from a community potluck to a music cruise and a downtown social. The event will conclude on Sept. 16 with a “diversity walk” parade down Main Street with a Hispanic Heritage celebration with food and music from 4-8 p.m. on Virginia Avenue.
Although it will likely look different each year, the city hopes to make Welcoming Week an annual event to close out the summer season. The City of Gunnison has not yet been officially certified as a “welcoming” community by Welcoming America, but the organization has offered a great model to follow, Esqueda said.
“There needs to be a certain level of infrastructure in place,” he said. “I don't necessarily mean like physically, but with resources, services and accessibility. A lot of organizations are already continuing to expand on those. It’s really just taking the time to highlight and expand on that work. This week is our continued commitment to improvement here.”
(Bella Biondini can be contacted at 970.641.1414 or bella@gunnisontimes.com.)
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